5 Reasons why Ashwin is currently world”s best off-spinner

1. ALL FORMAT BOWLER

Ashwin burst into the scene in the 3^rd edition of the Indian Premier League where he impressed one and all with his economic bowling in the tournament. In Match 48 of that edition, Ashwin bowled a toxic spell of 4 overs (4-0-16-3) on a sluggish Chepauk surface and his heroics with the ball in the first innings helped CSK restrict KKR to a low total of 139/7 from the allotted 20 overs. He scalped the wickets of Chris Gayle, Brendon McCulum and David Hussey, who formed the nucleus of the KKR outfit back in 2010. He was called upon by Captain M.S Dhoni to take the new ball in that game and how well did he respond to the call? His Captain in CSK soon became his Captain in the national side and it is owing to the rapport they share that Dhoni has been able to bring Ashwin into the attack in right situations and at right times; be it in the longer format or the shorter ones. He is a two-time IPL winner, two-time CL T20 champion, World Cup winner, a member of the triumphant Indian team which lifted the ICC Champions Trophy in 2013 and also a member of the Indian team which reached the final of the ICC WT20 in 2014. He also won the Golden Stump award (the award for the highest wicket taker) in the 2^nd edition of the CL T20 in South Africa. He is one of those handful cricketers who started their international careers with the shorter format and later made shift to Test cricket. Yet, his Test career appears more glorious than any of his limited-over records. He has represented India in 11 Test series’ till date and has received the Man of the Series award on 4 occasions in Tests. It is a fact that majority of his accolades in white uniform is ascribed to the assistance he gets from sub continental conditions. That said, he has played just 28 Test matches in his career so far and has got enough time to catch up with the statistics on foreign surfaces if he continues to cling to the spectacular form he has exhibited in the last 6 months or so.

Let’s throw a quick glance at a table which compares Ashwin’s track record across all 3 formats of the game.

It is pretty evident from the table that Ashwin is an attacking bowler, whose wicket taking prowess has fetched him success in the longer as well as the shorter formats. We spoke a while ago about his impressive Test career. He has also shined in ODIs and T20Is. He has scalped 139 wickets in 99 ODIs as of yet, which accounts for 1.41 wickets per match; a touch below the accepted standard for judging top notch bowlers in the 50 overs format (the ideal wicket/match ratio is 1.5 wickets/match). Even in T20Is, he has taken 29 wickets in similar number of matches. His economy rate in T20Is is 7.24; which is well below the ideal standard in T20Is- 7.50 that is. These stats thus reiterate the point that Ashwin is an ‘all format bowler’.